Fair
by SarahBlackwood
Summary: Before the events of Half Blood Prince Severus Snape visits Godric's Hollow. There in the ruins of the Potters' former home he discovers something that causes him to reflect upon his relationship with Lily Evans. The whole relationship.
1. Chapter 1

I wasn't going to write this but Jane Grey forced me. ;-) Thanks to Lisa for the beta job. Excellent work thanks dear. This story is for Jane and Lisa. Please read and review!

**Fair **

Prologue: The Cottage in Godric's Hollow

The cottage had stood there, just as the Dark Lord had left it, for the past fifteen years: ruined, its roof blasted off from when the Killing curse backfired. Thick tendrils of ivy grew around it, obscuring it from view; the windows were smeared with fifteen years worth of exposure to the elements. It had never been a well built structure, simply passable. Once it had looked exactly like the squat cottages that surrounded it; now it stood out like a sore thumb. The hedges were out of control; a simple trimming charm could have fixed that, but they had been left to grow wild. The grass in the front yard was waist high; the stones of the little path that led to the door were cracked and fuzzed over with moss. He wondered not for the first time why no one had ever attempted to rebuild the cottage, or demolish it entirely.

Had this been Dumbledore's doing, keeping it frozen as Lord Voldemort had left it all those years ago? If he went inside, would he still see a kettle on a blackened stove, mugs housing dusty tea bags on the kitchen counter, and a bowl full of gingersnaps -Lily's favourite- beside them? Was this a museum? Or was the idea for it to be a warning, a monument in their honour? Or Harry's honour, perhaps?

Sentimentality was for Gryffindors, Snape thought; he'd have torn it down. But who was he kidding? He wouldn't have. Even as he started towards the door he felt his heart shudder in his chest. He would never have torn down the last place she had been happy. He was so bloody Gryffindor sentimental that he hadn't even been inside it yet. Every year he'd been back, every spring for the past fifteen years he'd stood before it, but he had never once dared to enter. He glanced at the sign near the doorway, which stated the date of Lily and James Potter's death and Harry's triumph over Lord Voldemort; it was smeared with signatures and messages. Last year the graffiti hadn't been as prominent; now, it closed in on the neatly printed words of the sign like strangling weeds. There were people following the adventures of Harry James Potter, people cheering him on, people wishing him well. Snape sneered; it was easy to be a hero. Potter should try his job on for a day and see how it fit him.

Snape had a vague sort of idea in his head that he could enter and be comforted by the objects that she had once owned, that he might take one with him as a keepsake. He pushed that idea away from himself forcefully as he set foot in the cottage. What struck him first was the smell: musty, stale, and something else, a burnt smell like blackened sugar. The scent of a failed curse?

The living room was small, functional and had been decorated sparsely with whatever could be donated or salvaged on short notice. Everything was silver and velvety with dust. There was a modest bookshelf that housed several volumes on Quidditch, a handful of classic novels, a cookbook for new mothers, several Potions journals and a stack of Transfiguration Weekly. He'd thought he might see some of his own books on that rickety shelf, books he'd lent Lily or given to her; but if she still had them when she died she'd hidden them well. On the mantelpiece were framed wizarding photographs. Harry aged three weeks, James reading _The Quibbler_ at the breakfast table. An old school picture of the Marauder gang: Lupin looking worn but happy, Wormtail shy and flush-cheeked, James and Sirius sticking their tongues out at him when Snape brushed away a cobweb with one thumb. And there was one of Lily in her wedding dress, beaming and waving, holding up her bouquet of lilies and roses. Snape's breath caught in his throat. She was even lovelier than he remembered and she would stay that way forever: 19, devastatingly beautiful, her smile genuine, her green eyes shining with happiness. She gave him a sad regretful look and then turned away.

He would have given anything to be able to take this photo with him. However, he knew he couldn't. There was only reason this picture, or anything else in the house, was still here and that was that the whole place was charmed to prevent souvenir hunters from taking anything away with them. A standard anti theft spell that only allowed the owner of the belongings to remove them; in other words, Potter- and he had obviously never been here.

Snape sat down on the sage green velvet sofa, and the dust particles danced like mad around him. Lord Voldemort was back, Dumbledore was injured; the world was at the mercy of a hormonal sixteen year old wizard with Quidditch and girls on the brain, and Severus Snape was sitting on Lily Potter's sofa waiting for a sign to motivate him to go on. There must be something left, he thought, one thing I gave her. She must have kept something. He had given her such marvellous gifts when they were young. A book that told you stories according to what mood you were in, jewelled hair clips that whispered the answers in your ears during exams (not that Lily ever wore them during exams), the mental mints that upped your mental acuity slightly for half an hour after you sucked them, and the violet satin ribbon that passed on notes to the wearer - they'd communicated that way for years, it hadn't mattered that they were in different houses.

She must have kept something, she couldn't have thrown everything away; she wasn't like that. He stood up and rifled through a small desk in the corner that contained mostly James' things, some letters from Dumbledore, some from Sirius and Lupin, one long one from Peter, tickets to Quidditch games. There was hardly anything of Lily's there. Well, she wouldn't have kept his letters there where James could read them. He'd written her so many over the years, even after their friendship was over; even some after she'd married Potter, when he, Snape, had been a Death Eater. Did she just throw them away? Suddenly a passion gripped him: there must be some proof of their friendship in this house, he wouldn't leave until he found it.

Nothing. For hours he searched, and found nothing. He didn't dare go up the rickety stairs to that blasted top floor; there wasn't much left there, nothing of the bedroom that was once Harry's nor much of the room Lily once slept in with James. Snape was grateful for that last: he wouldn't have wanted to stand at the foot of James Potter's bed and imagine Lily in her husband's arms. Even after all these years that cut still burned, like a curse wound that would not heal. He wondered if some part of her had done it intentionally, to hurt him. That alone made her worthy of Slytherin, in his mind. She must have known that by picking Potter for her husband, she would mortally wound him.

He decided if she'd hidden anything it would be in the living room, almost in plain view. He looked around for the hundredth time. Something here meant something to Lily, some piece of furniture. The sofa. The sage green velvet sofa. It was grander than the rest of the furniture. It stuck out next to bookshelves and coffee tables that had probably been donated. Perhaps the sofa had been new, a gift. He looked underneath it, feeling all along the underside with trembling fingers. He couldn't believe his luck when the lining ended and he brushed polished wood: a box. He plucked it from its hiding place; there wasn't even a concealment charm on it. He placed it on the floor in front of him and wiped the dust from the lid. It was inlaid with stars and moons in some darker wood: fine craftsmanship, handmade, without the benefit of magic. The initials P.P. were carved in the corner almost invisibly. Inside the lid were the words: _For Lily on her wedding day. A song of her very own. Love from Peter. _Snape recalled Peter's mother had been a concert pianist; it wasn't too unlikely she had taught him music. So, little Peter Pettigrew had some talent after all, Snape thought, grudgingly impressed. Or at least he had the sense to give the illusion of having talent. Inside the box were a tiny golden key and a handful of keepsakes. The key fit into a hole in the side of the box, Snape pushed it in and turned till it would turn no more.

Music spilled out from the box: music that didn't just come from the simple mechanics of cogs and springs, but had been injected with a slight silver thread of magic. Snape felt sure someone, Lupin perhaps, had helped Pettigrew with the magic, but the music could very well have been his own. The song started out a plain, almost childish waltz, but then expanded into something entirely different: a melody that pulled at his heartstrings, its darker tones dragging him into memories so treacherous, he'd banished them years ago. The tune was like Lily herself: the purity, the heartbreaking beauty, the undertone of darkness that couldn't be explained unless you knew her. And even then she hid it well.

Peter, it seemed, was more observant than he'd previously led them to believe. Perhaps Snape would keep that in mind when he next encountered his rat-like servant.

Jealousy snapped at the heels of that thought. Even small, untalented Pettigrew had been permitted to spend time with her, had received a measure of her affection. Peter had been there at Lily's wedding, he'd given her this box. Snape had been far away that day, at another party. He hadn't seen Lily since they left school, and hadn't spoken to her since...that time…

The party he had been to on the day Lily married James had been a Death Eater revel, one of Lucius Malfoy's drawn-out decadent affairs. He'd often been invited to them in the past, but had seldom attended; he said he felt their time was better spent on other pursuits. He'd been hoping to impress the Dark Lord with his loyalty to the cause, when in fact Voldemort encouraged these events; it amused him to watch the dalliances of his Death Eaters. Probably he was gathering information with which to blackmail them at a later date; that too amused him at the time.

The real reason Snape disliked Malfoy's revels was that he couldn't dance. That night he drank too much to stand straight, never mind shuffle his feet in time to the music. He remembered watching Bellatrix Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy moving in perfect harmony, as if they were born to move together. They reminded him of lions: proud, vicious, and poised to attack. He imagined Lily in her wedding dress in James' arms, floating to some modern tune: happy, a million miles away from where he was in every sense. He'd stood there wallowing in self pity when he felt a small, cold hand slip into his. He'd jumped, startled and tried to tear his hand away, but Narcissa wouldn't let go.

Her face had been pale and drawn; she looked unlovely in her fear. That's what it was: fear, fear like a dagger in the belly that made her look at her husband and sister like she had never seen them before. A fear so strong, she'd chosen such an unlikely candidate as Severus Snape to be her comforter. So he'd just stood there, holding her hand. Nobody noticed; nobody cared. Compared to the activities the others were engaging in, holding the hand of another man's wife was nothing - even the hand of such a wife as Narcissa Malfoy.

He'd pretended for a minute it was Lily's hand he was holding, but then he'd never wanted Lily to see him like this, in the company of these people. Narcissa had cleared her throat slightly. "Thank you," she'd said, and smiled, her beauty returning to her with mind numbing suddenness. They never spoke about it again, but Snape knew from that moment that her heart wasn't in it. She may have loved Lucius enough to go along with the whole thing but she would never be one of the select few, she'd never wear the mark. These black revels and all they implied - a glimpse of the world as it would be when the Dark Lord achieved ultimate power - clearly terrified her.

Snape turned his thoughts back to the box on his lap. The mechanism was slowing down, making the tune sound sinister. He rifled through its contents impatiently: a lace glove - part of her wedding costume? An acceptance letter for a Charms apprenticeship, an apprenticeship she would have excelled in had she lived. Snape found himself trembling at the sheer waste of this, a generation dead and gone, the best minds in the wizarding world destroyed. An announcement for the birth of Harry James Potter, July 31st 1980. A photograph of the old Order of the Phoenix in a walnut frame. A pack of Drooble's best blowing gum. A handkerchief embroidered with the letter L; taking it to stand for Lily, Snape pressed to his lips. A dark red rose enchanted to remain fresh, probably a gift from James; Snape dropped it at once as if it were a serpent, about to bite him. And that was all; his fingernails scraped the bottom of the box, there was nothing else in there.

A quiet, terrible rage shook within him. Nothing, nothing that proved they had ever known each other. Not one keepsake. She'd thrown everything out. He longed to hurl the box against the crooked wall with its yellowed wallpaper, but instead he turned it upside down spilling its contents onto the wooden floor. The bottom was false; he knew at once, though how he knew this he wasn't sure. He examined it for a long time, unable to find a way to open it; no spell worked. It occurred to him Lily might have added this herself; a false bottom like this, with no known means of opening it, was definitely beyond Peter Pettigrew's talents, and perhaps even beyond Remus Lupin.

There was something familiar about this. He'd know her work blind; magic left a distinct residue and it was Lily's work all right. She must have set it to open to some word, some code. What word would Lily Potter choose? Harry? James?

A secret code to open the door to a cave.

When they were children, Lily had sometimes told him Muggle fairytales. He'd found them hysterical, the Muggle concept of magic could reduce him into fits of laughter that could go on for hours. His mother had only ever told him Beedle the Bard, and his father wasn't the sort who told any stories. Ali Baba: that had been the name of the hero. He had found thieves treasure hidden in a cave that could only be opened by saying the magic words.

"Alohomora!" Severus had often said, waiting with delight for Lily to correct him with more fondness than exasperation in her tone.

There had been something with nuts? Or poppy? Open Caraway. Open Peppercorn. Open Sesame. That was it.

"Open Sesame," Snape intoned.

The bottom of the box vanished. There, nestled in a bed of crinkled Daily Prophet pages, was a slim book covered in blue velvet; one butterfly hair clip missing its mate; a note he'd written her near the end of sixth year, thankfully so tear stained it was almost illegible; and a thick packet of letters that seemed to be unopened, tied together with a dark green silk ribbon. The ribbon, Snape realised with a start, belonged to him. He hadn't given it to Lily; in fact he'd always wondered where he had lost it. It had never occurred to him Lily might have taken such a small, insignificant thing.

It had belonged to his mother at some point, and had been the thing she'd given him to remember her by his first year at Hogwarts. At the time, he had been feverish with excitement at the prospect of going away to school, but also, although he never admitted it, a little sad. For a long time, before he met Lily, Eileen Prince had been his only friend, and he had been hers. She had been the only person who knew what he could do, and had told him he was normal - unlike his father, unlike almost everyone he encountered at Muggle school and in the neighbourhood. By the time he finally really met Lily, he had long ago given up on ever meeting a Muggle who didn't react to him with disgust or confusion.

He fingered the green silk contemplatively; this he could take with him, this belonged to him. Could he take the letters as well, since they were bound by his belonging? Sometimes spells could be bent a bit.

But whose letters were they? Who had written them? Did he want to read them? Did he want to take them?

Whose letters? Easily solved. He slid the ribbon to one side and read the name on the first envelope: Miss Petunia Evans. Ah, the Muggle sister.

Who had written them? Lily. No doubt about it, he'd know her loopy scrawl anywhere.

Did he want to read them? Yes. Yes. Again yes. A hundred times yes.

Did he want to take them? His legs reacted before he had a chance to finish the thought. He stood up.

It occurred to him Potter might one day discover the cottage and all its contents. He might find this box. He might even, though Snape thought it highly unlikely, open the false bottom and read the inscription in the velvet bound book Severus Snape had once given Lily Evans. This thought sent waves of disgust through him.

Sometimes it seemed to Snape, though he knew Harry Potter was Lily's son and that he had inherited her unmistakable eyes, that boy had absolutely nothing to do with Lily. There was a line in his head that separated that arrogant child he loved to torment in Potions class from the girl he had loved, still loved. If Potter ever came here it would all belong to him, even the presents he'd given Lily. Potter had everything, he had the protection of her love; while he, Snape, had nothing - just a handful of memories and this packet of letters. He tucked the letters into his robes and bent down to place all the keepsakes back into the music box. He resealed the false bottom. (Close Sesame.) Then he tucked it back into its hiding place under the sofa. He tidied up a bit, tried to leave things as he found them. Then he headed towards the door pausing at the threshold for a minute.

The ribbon was his, and it bound the letters; thus, they too belonged to him, he thought as he exited the cottage. He felt an ominous sort of twitching in the spot above his heart where he had placed the letters, but that was all. He was free to take them out of the cottage.

Snape ran down the street, shivering with anticipation, and with the thrill that comes with outsmarting someone. He had almost left Godric's Hollow behind him, his legs trembling with the strain of unfamiliar exercise, before he realised it would be faster just to Apparate back home to Spinner's End. He did so. Safe in the dingy house that had once belonged to his father, he dove into his breast pocket to retrieve the letters. They were still there, at least a dozen letters Lily had written; it didn't matter to him who they were addressed to. He thought for a second of Dumbledore, and how he would probably hand them over to Petunia Dursley unread. Snape grinned to himself in the dark, a grim sort of grin. Thankfully, he wasn't Dumbledore; he was Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin House. He opened the first letter without further hesitation, integrity be damned. All's fair in love and war.


	2. Chapter 2

Here is the next instalment at last. In case anyone is following this. Unfortunately I had to work so it took me longer to get this out. Sorry! Thanks to Lisa for the beta-work! Also thanks for the Pensieve idea. I love you. And Jane, Lily's socks are yours. You can also have her shoes. They were scourgified. And Lilgreenmomo, as always, thanks for the support and for liking the Gene-ified Severus. More to come. Please read and review. Reviews are good.

Chapter: The First Letter

_16__th__ of January, 1977_

_Dear Petunia,_

_You never answered my last letter. I don't understand why you've cut yourself off from me like this. For the past six years, ever since I was first accepted to Hogwarts, things have been tense between us, but you always wrote back in the end. I don't know what I've done that you're no longer even being civil to me. I told myself it wasn't your fault that trip to Canada happened to coincide with my summer holidays. Then at Christmas you spent the whole time with your boyfriend even though Mum is ill and we didn't get to talk longer than 5 minutes the whole visit, but I didn't complain. I told myself things change, priorities change. But that's not it, is it? You've been avoiding me. When I wrote to you that I was no longer friends with Severus Snape, part of me was hoping you'd be pleased and welcome me back. And we could be sisters again. I know it can't be the way it was before; we've both changed too much. But you can treat me like a sister again. With Mum ill we have to stick together. I thought you'd realise this and come round, but it seems to me that you're colder than ever now. Please tell me what I can do to make things better between us! _

_I suppose if I want you back as my sister I__'ll have to try to be a Muggle again. That will never happen though, Petunia. I'm in this world now, for better or worse. Maybe it would be better if I didn't write to you about Hogwarts and everything going on with me here. But you see the thing is, I don't know who else to write to. Sure I have friends here, Mary McDonald is nice and so is Dorcas, but it's not the same. You're the only one besides Severus who ever really bothered to see the real me. _

_Things haven't been too good for me since Christmas. I thought by severing (haha__, no pun intended) ties with Severus, I was doing the right thing - disassociating myself from the Dark Arts, you know, bad magic. I thought it would be easy to move on - after all, he is wrong. He chose those bad friends and was hateful to me. Things aren't that black and white, though, as you have often told me. _

_Mostly I've been avoiding him. At first he kept trying to corner me and __he sent me notes all the time. He even went over to the house during the Christmas holidays; you were out, Dad sent him away. I saw him from the upstairs window. He seemed resigned. I don't know, but when I saw him looking so helpless like that…you always said I have a weak spot for the underdog. But the name he called me last summer was completely unforgivable, how would we ever get past that?_

_About a month ago he stopped following me around; he won't look at me or talk to me. I don't know what's going on. I should be happy, but I'm not. Sure he has evil friends and he shouldn't have called me a Mudblood, but shouldn't I have tried to help him? Isn't that what a good friend does? Steer friends away from the wrong path? We've known each other forever, and I just abandoned him because of one word. And I know you never liked him Tuney, but what sort of person could abandon a friend like that? The real reason wasn't even the word Mudblood, or the fact that he is obsessed with Dark Magic. It's that I was ashamed of being friends with him. That's what it was. He was wrong but I was worse, I didn't want to be seen with him anymore, with his greasy hair and funny way of talking. I was worried people might think we were…you know, romantically…That's just stupid though isn't it? He was just a friend._

_The last few weeks he's looked just__ awful, just dreadful. You'll probably say he always did, but he looks downright unhealthy now, terribly thin and pale, with dark circles under his eyes. I keep thinking I should send him an owl or try to send a secret message using that ribbon he gave me that passes notes on instantly. But I wouldn't know what to say. Should I just swallow my pride and try to help him? Is he this way because of me? Petunia, what if he's seriously ill? It's bad enough with Mum and the chemotherapy. I can't stop thinking of this… of him, Tuney, it's driving me mad._

_I don't know what to do._

_Your sister,_

_Lily_

Snape set the letter down on the little table to his right. He felt cold inside, dead, but his face was burning. His emotions pulled him in every direction at once, hooking him by his belly button, like travelling by Portkey. She had been ashamed of him. He buried his face in one hand. After all that time it still hurt. Romantically, she'd written; she'd been worried people would think they were connected romantically. He knocked over his glass of wine and let it shatter on the ground. Romance be damned. He'd loved her completely. He was still paying for that love, every single day. To look into her eyes almost daily, that boy's green eyes, sunk in James Potter's thin, arrogant face…

A rustling sound at the door alerted him to Wormtail's presence.

"I thought I heard…" the rat-like man began.

Snape grabbed the first thing that came to hand: a Muggle LP of Viviane Pettigrew's piano concertos that he had been listening to the night before. He hurled it at the door with all his might. Peter's eyes widened slightly and he slammed the door just in time, before it hit the doorframe and broke into two uneven pieces.

Snape whipped out his wand and muttered, "Reparo."

That record was worth something these days. The woman hadn't played in public since her son, Wormtail, had "died". If she only knew what had really become of him - that snivelling, grovelling sycophant, content with vestiges of acknowledgement from the Dark Lord and ironing Severus Snape's socks.

Snape sat down again and picked up the first letter. She had never sent it, from the looks of it. Petunia never got to answer. Just as well. If Petunia had answered, things would probably not have happened the way they did.

He thought back to that uncertain time when he had been busy digging further into the Dark Arts than he had ever been before. With Lily no longer speaking to him, he was free to spend his time with whomever he pleased, to read anything he pleased, to use whatever words he pleased. Much of the attraction to these things had faded since she had ended their friendship, but Snape had found that once you opened the door to the Dark Arts, it wasn't so easy to shut it again.

He'd spent many feverish nights reading, practicing, and savouring the new knowledge. He'd asked himself: how could knowledge be bad? Finally, what he'd been hoping for occurred. In Sixth Year, soon after Snape's 17th birthday, Lucius Malfoy sent him an invitation to a meeting. Though Malfoy had left Hogwarts several years before, he was still famous in Slytherin House for his good looks, charm, success, and most importantly his very deep pockets. It was a very big honour indeed to be noticed by Malfoy.

Snape remembered worrying about what Lily would think of him going to meet a great, dirty bunch of Death Eaters, and then he'd remembered that they were no longer friends. There had been a brief nagging feeling that he was getting himself into something that wouldn't be so easy to get out of, but without Lily, nothing really mattered. So he'd attended. It had felt so good that there were people who wanted him, who needed him; at last, he'd found something he could belong to.

Things had gone downhill quite rapidly from that point. The Dark Lord wasn't a kind master. After receiving the Mark, Snape had been ill for days, weeks. He'd missed more classes than he had in his first 5 years at Hogwarts combined. Teachers were starting to worry. He'd relied more and more on Avery and Rosier to manhandle him through lessons and meals. He'd struggled to keep his thoughts of Lily private, locked in; he'd practised clearing his mind of all emotions every day. As a result, his feelings towards her had dulled somewhat, like a cancer in remission.

Snape stood up abruptly and warded the door. There was an easier way to remember, painful as that method may be. He crossed the room, set up his old Pensieve, and pulled the silvery thread of memory from his mind, releasing it into the dish. He wavered for a second before plunging his face into the liquid and emerging in Hogwarts, mid January, 1977, sixth year.

Snape blinked and found himself in the cafeteria. He looked towards the staff table, where his place was filled by Horace Slughorn. Dumbledore, his wandhand whole and unblemished, was sitting beside the moustachioed Potions Master, talking animatedly.

He quickly scanned the room and discovered his17-year-old self sitting next to Rosier and Wilkes at the Slytherin table. The plate before his younger self was empty save for a stray bit of toast. As Snape recalled, that particular morning he'd managed to choke down a substantial breakfast- a rare feat in those days, when even the thought of food turned his stomach. Rosier was pushing a glass of orange juice towards younger Severus, insisting he needed the vitamins. Snape smiled grimly; of course, Rosier had wanted to be a healer in those days. In hindsight, it was funny that Evan Rosier, renowned in his day for duelling and maiming, had originally wanted to be a healer.

Snape turned away from the 17-year-old version of himself and angled his head towards the Gryffindor table, but Lily Evans had already finished her breakfast and was gone. He followed himself down the hall on the way to Charms, watching with interest as Rosier shouldered the younger Snape's school bag and gave him a little pat on the back. He was surprised at the casualness of the gesture: this boy had liked him. He recalled, as if through a veil, that there had been other Slytherins who had been kind to him - almost friends - but at the time he'd been too distracted to pay them any mind. Mulciber, younger and entertaining notions of facial hair, passed them and muttered: "Sev's turn today."

Snape watched as an expression of sheer terror crossed the face of the younger Severus.

The Dark Lord enjoyed torturing them at intervals in those days, particularly the new recruits. He sent waves of fear and pain by way of the Mark he had burned into their skin. It was his little way of testing their loyalty. How Mulciber had known whose turn it was on that day was a mystery, but sure enough, as they turned the corner he saw himself double up with pain and lurch down onto his knees, heaving desperately. The younger Snape's face was ashen and drawn, his lips nearly blue. Young Severus clutched his arm through his robes. Snape watched as Rosier placed his hand on young Severus' forehead and whispered something into his ear. He was too far away to hear what was whispered, but he remembered the words all the same.

"Just ride it out Severus. Easy does it."

He knew what was coming, but when he saw her heading towards him, he was startled all the same. Lily. She was walking straight towards the younger Snape, Rosier and Mulciber.

She wore her school robes with certain flair no one else ever seemed to pull off, and she'd discarded her tie and wore a saffron coloured silk scarf around her neck instead. It clashed with her hair.

Lily stood there for a minute, slightly stooped under the weight of her schoolbag, as if considering how best to approach the trio of Slytherins before her. Her lopsided stance seemed vaguely familiar to Snape, and he laughed out loud when he realised that she reminded him a little of Potter's know it all friend, Hermione Granger. Miss Granger had the same bad posture; she too was bent out of shape by the weight of her books. It hadn't been the first time Granger reminded him of Lily, but it was the first time Lily had ever reminded him of Granger.

Around Lily's slender wrists glittered a dozen brightly coloured bangles, and threaded in between them was the violet conversation ribbon he'd made her in third year. Snape reached towards her involuntarily, forgetting she was only a memory. She must have been coming to find him if she was wearing the ribbon, he'd never noticed that before. His heart contracted with joy.

Young Severus was still on his hands and knees on the ground, oblivious to Lily's presence. He rolled his eyes upward, sweat beading on his chalky forehead; he closed his eyes. His thin grey lips formed one word: Lily. Then he vomited all over her new violet suede shoes.

The scene changed. Snape was in the hospital wing, standing before a narrow cot. The young Snape was just waking up, shivering with cold, not yet noticing Lily Evans curled up in an armchair by his bedside. In the beds to his right lay two boys he recognised as members of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, Beaters, who had simultaneously chucked bludgers at each other's heads and had suffered twin concussions. Idiots, Snape thought as he remembered the event - so much for Ravenclaw brilliance. Ravenclaw had lost that season. It turned out the morons had been going out with the same girl. The two-timing young lady had undoubtedly been in Slytherin House.

In a bed to his left lay a tall thin girl whose face was covered in oozing blue sores: Marlene McKinnon, a notorious dueller. She would die by Travers' hand just a few years later. Beside McKinnon was a Hufflepuff whose face and arms were a startling shade of orange; Pomfrey hadn't been able to figure that one out, and had sent the boy to St. Mungo's the very next day.

With all these patients to attend to, Madam Pomfrey probably hadn't spent much time examining young Severus Snape. It was likely she had simply diagnosed him with the usual (exhaustion and dehydration) and put him in a bed. He had been to the hospital wing more than once during O.W.L. year because he'd spent so much time studying that he'd forgotten to feed himself.

Incidentally, it was during the study-intense fifth year that he had become so negligent about washing his hair - an activity that never been his favourite - that he had become known as 'the greasy git'. Sirius in particular found this amusing. Sirius Black, with his shining dark head of hair, so popular with the ladies. Snape recalled with relish Sirius' filthy, grizzled locks after his escape from Azkaban. So much for good looks.

Pomfrey's half-hearted examination meant young Snape was still clothed in his school robes under the covers; as a result, she hadn't discovered the Dark Mark tattooed onto his left arm. The younger Snape exhaled in relief. The older Snape watched the scene wryly; perhaps it would have been better if Pomfrey had discovered the Mark that day. How differently things would have turned out.

Young Severus was looking around the room trying to figure out how long he'd been asleep for. His eyes fell on a pile of homework on the nightstand. Potions, Arithmancy and Charms. He took in the pair of Beaters to his right. A smirk-like spasm rippled across his face. But when he turned to the left and saw Lily, his mouth fell open in surprise. She was wearing a new cobalt blue dressing gown, and beneath it he could see a hint of her cotton nightdress. It was night then. Probably past bedtime. On her feet she wore black and yellow striped socks, which reminded the elder Snape of a bumblebee.

"You've been here all day." She said. "Pomfrey said it's acute exhaustion and dehydration."

Snape could still remember the relief that washed over him at the sound of her voice; he remembered wanting to pinch himself to check if he was dreaming. She was talking to him; she was here. Young Snape squirmed uncomfortably, pulling the covers up to his nose. He was already a step ahead, remembering the scene earlier that day, when he had thrown up on Lily's shoes.

"What are you doing here?" The boy asked, glaring at her and trying to push himself into a sitting position. He experimented with making his voice deeper, more forbidding. He forced his face into a scowl, but his eyes were covertly memorising Lily's form, savouring it.

Snape took another quick look around at the other patients, and saw that his younger self and Lily were doing the same. Blake and Rosen, the two Ravenclaw Beaters, were fast asleep. Their heads were twice their normal size, muffled in bandaging like a pair of Egyptian mummies.

Marlene McKinnon lay there so peacefully, Snape was positive she had been given a draught of Dreamless Sleep. Because of the pranks she liked to play, (her favourite victims being Slytherins), McKinnon had rarely slept through the night even when healthy; and she had wreaked havoc in Madam Pomfrey's orderly Hospital Wing too many times to count. Pomfrey was only right to be cautious.

The orange boy appeared to have no ears. Not for the first time, Snape wondered if someone had attempted to transfigure him into an orange and bungled the job. All in all, Snape reassured himself, it was unlikely any of them had heard what came next. Not that it mattered at this point.

The younger Snape and Lily also seemed satisfied that they wouldn't be overheard. Lily's shoulders relaxed a fraction, and she turned back to the black haired boy in the bed in front of her. She shut the book she was holding ("Advanced Potion-Making") and hugged it to her chest. "I was worried about you." she said at last. Her cheeks were pinched in slightly as she scrutinised the younger Snape. "You look awful."

"Well, I'm fine. Don't worry. Don't let me keep you from your homework or whatever." He turned on his side away from her, drawing the covers up around his neck.

"I've already done it." she said in a distracted sort of tone. "Look Severus. You really hurt me last summer."

"Yes. We've discussed this," Severus interrupted her. "There's no point talking about it again. You don't want to be my friend. Fine."

"Let me finish!" she snapped. She slammed the book onto the bed. "I do want to be your friend. I thought I didn't but…you deserve a second chance. Just… can't it be the way it was before? Without Mulciber and Avery and Rosier? Without this obsession with the Dark Arts? I want to be your friend, but I need you to be the sort of person who would never use the word Mudblood, not to me, not ever. Don't you want to be friends?" The words came out too fast, jumbled together, stumbling over each other.

There was a pause. Snape watched as Lily fidgeted and the younger version of himself lay there motionless, choosing his next words carefully. Then the teenaged Snape sat up and faced Lily. He pushed his long black hair out of his face. His expression was unreadable but the adult Snape knew that he was filled with emotions that warred with each other. He was one step away from shouting out some silly romantic declaration, or telling her to get out of his sight.

"No. I don't." he said instead, his dark eyes looking straight into her green ones.

"You don't mean that," Lily said, her voice shaking slightly, and looked down at her feet. She struggled to maintain her composure and shifted slightly in her seat as if contemplating bolting from the room.

"How would you know what I mean?" he said unkindly. "You haven't spoken to me for months."

"We were best friends!" she protested.

"Yeah well I fixed that didn't I? You said so yourself," the boy said.

Lily's eyes were blazing. "But I forgive you!" she shouted. She jumped to her feet, rushed at the boy in his bed and held fast to his left arm. He drew away from her as if scalded.

Snape remembered that at this point he had been ready to accept her offer of friendship, and turn his back on the Dark Arts and his new master forever. However, this was more easily said than done. Also, he'd felt the prickle of pride. How dare she set the rules? How dare she expect him to just jump when she called? He had enough of that from the Dark Lord.

"That's how it works? Half a year of silence. Half a year, you wouldn't even look at me. You forgive me and that's it? I give up my other friends and everything else you don't like, and we're back to the way it was? I don't want it the way it was. I don't want to be your friend, Lily."

Lily's mouth bent out of shape. Snape wondered if she had been about to cry. She slid down from the armchair and stood before him, her back stiff as a board. At the time, Snape had been sure she was going to turn on her heel and march straight out of the room. He had been sure this would be the last time he'd ever speak to Lily Evans. Instead, Lily did something so shocking, he had sat there as if paralysed. She walked towards the bed and took the younger Snape's hand in her own.

"You're being silly Sev," she said earnestly. "You and I are friends. Forever. You said so, when you were eleven. And I'm not going to go away until you say you're my friend again."

Sev's mouth was agape. He opened it and closed it a few times but no sound issued from it. Suddenly, Madam Pomfrey burst into the room, through the spot where the adult Snape stood observing the scene. With a cry of indignation, she propelled Lily towards the door.

"Miss Evans! Never in all my years! I'm surprised at you…a prefect such as yourself! Out and about, past visiting hours, past bedtime!"

Lily didn't go gently. She held fast to the door and called out Snape's name, winking and grinning at him as Pomfrey forced her into the hall. Young Snape stood beside the bed in his bare feet, a stricken expression on his face. He had been about to give in and ask Lily to be his friend again.

Snape pulled out of the memory with a sickening wrench, before Pomfrey could return and chastise his younger self. He was back in the parlour in Spinner's End. The candles had gone out and the fire was dying. Snape shivered and pulled his cloak closer.

"It's fine to recall the past," Dumbledore often said. "But you mustn't let it consume you, Severus. Return to the past only to learn from it. The present is where you belong."

That was rich, coming from Hogwarts' revered Headmaster. Snape had always felt that there was something about the man that was stuck in the past. And not just to learn from it.

Snape contemplated this. What had he learned form the past?

He had learned that Severus Snape at age 17, novice Death Eater had been an even bigger fool than he remembered.

What else had he learned? The conversation ribbon: Lily had been wearing it. He had never thought to check it. All these years. She may have sent him a message that he never knew about. The last time he'd checked the ribbon had been just before his fateful conversation with Lily in front of the passage to the Gryffindor common room. That had been towards the end of fifth year. The ribbon would be upstairs in his old room, with his old school things. Snape took a quick gulp of wine straight from the crystal decanter. He returned the memory to its proper place, stowed away the Pensieve, and snatched up the letters and tucked them into the inside pocket of his robes. Then he unwarded the door and silenced Wormtail, who was waiting in the hall, with a snarl.

Upstairs in his old bedroom, he pulled out the cardboard box marked Fifth Year. His old school books were all there, as well as his neatly printed notes and some rare keepsakes. He held up a wizarding picture that showed himself standing at platform 9 ¾ having just arrived home for the summer. He was hanging onto his trunk with one hand and holding a cigarette in the other. How his mother had scolded him for that! Snape had started smoking right around the time he sat for his O.W.L.s, mainly because Avery and Mulciber did - though he'd carried the cigarettes around for months hoping the more popular students would ask him for one. It had taken him ages after that to break the habit.

Years of smoking and constant contact with discolouring potions ingredients hadn't exactly been kind to his teeth. He'd thought of bleaching them, but yellow teeth hardly seemed important next to everything the Order was now facing: Dumbledore's imminent end, Voldemort's possible victory, Harry Potter coming into his role as The Chosen One. Snape shuddered. He looked down at the picture again. The sixteen year old Severus was drawing on his fag and scowling.

"Probably thought you looked dead cool, didn't you? You greasy git," the mirror on his wall cackled.

He'd had that mirror for years. It had hung in his dormitory in Hogwarts. Originally it had belonged to Wilkes, but in third year James Potter had bribed someone to let him in to the Slytherin dormitories, and had enchanted it to insult Snape. If anyone else looked in it, the mirror would bawl for Snape until he appeared. Wilkes hadn't wanted it after that. No one had been able to remove the mirror until seventh year, when it slid abruptly from the wall into Snape's hands. Some masochistic part of him decided to take it home with him, and there it had hung, in Spinner's End, ever since.

"Even after all this time you still haven't discovered shampoo? Remarkable!" the mirror said.

"Shut up," Snape muttered vaguely, and continued to rummage through the box. There it was, between the pages of his Transfiguration book. It was green instead of violet, and he hadn't touched it since the day he'd called Lily a Mudblood.

Snape looked down at the trinket in dismay. The magic had held all this time. How many times had he hoped against hope that some enchantment or potion would hold, only to find that time had dissolved the charm or curdled the concoction? This one time, he had prayed it would simply be a green ribbon, faded, splotched with water stains; but there they were, glittering in gold thread, the words _I miss you_. The embroidered writing was unmistakeably Lily's. Anyway, no one else knew the correct spell.

"Not fair is it?" the mirror commented.

Snape raised a fist at the glass, and then thought better of it. Magic was many things: addictive, ever-changing, wondrous, beautiful. But the mirror was right: it wasn't always fair.


End file.
